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Twitter’s Plan to Get People to Stop Yelling at Each Other

buzzfeednews.com

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Re: Twitter’s Plan to Get People to Stop Yelling at Each Other

#61

Post by beepboopbeep »

ihuman wrote: post #46
beepboopbeep wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or I could just click a dislike button and move on with my life, as is happening with my own posts

On HN there is a downvote button, but no block button, so its not a great comparison. If you just dislike someone on twitter, you would still see the user's new posts. If you dislike what they are saying in the present, do you still want to see what they're saying in the future?

There definitely is a down vote button. It's the negative sign next to the [username]|[time]

You're thinking of this in too black or white. What if an author I follow posts something dumb? Do I then unfollow them? Why is it too much to ask to simply click dislike just like I would for something I like?

Re: Twitter’s Plan to Get People to Stop Yelling at Each Other

#62

Post by rchaud »

gipp wrote: post #52
rchaud wrote: post #8

> "....learn about how not having [likes and retweets] could potentially change how people read things,” How does that change the way you interact in a conversation? That’s super interesting.” So basically, a bunch of tiny iterative UX changes that won't move the needle one bit. This is the company where moving from from 140 to 280 chars happened over the course of a decade. I feel for the product people, they are wo…

I'm not super optimistic about the changes, but getting rid of like/rt counts is not even close to a "tiny iterative ux change". Those counts are absolutely central to the way users interact with and understand conversation on the site. Getting rid of them completely is a massive sea change in the conversational dynamics.

> Those counts are absolutely central to the way users interact with and understand conversation on the site.

Maybe so, but the numbers won't be hidden to the algorithm, which ultimately decides which retweets and "high-engagement" posts to show you on the timeline. I would think that has a much bigger influence on the conversation. You won't reply to something if it never makes it to your feed in the first place.

Re: Twitter’s Plan to Get People to Stop Yelling at Each Other

#63

Post by [deleted] »

beepboopbeep wrote: post #61
ihuman wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On HN there is a downvote button, but no block button, so its not a great comparison. If you just dislike someone on twitter, you would still see the user's new posts. If you dislike what they are saying in the present, do you still want to see what they're saying in the future?

There definitely is a down vote button. It's the negative sign next to the [username]|[time] You're thinking of this in too black or white. What if an author I follow posts something dumb? Do I then unfollow them? Why is it too much to ask to simply click dislike just like I would for something I like?

[deleted]

Re: Twitter’s Plan to Get People to Stop Yelling at Each Other

#64

Post by ihuman »

beepboopbeep wrote: post #61
ihuman wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On HN there is a downvote button, but no block button, so its not a great comparison. If you just dislike someone on twitter, you would still see the user's new posts. If you dislike what they are saying in the present, do you still want to see what they're saying in the future?

There definitely is a down vote button. It's the negative sign next to the [username]|[time] You're thinking of this in too black or white. What if an author I follow posts something dumb? Do I then unfollow them? Why is it too much to ask to simply click dislike just like I would for something I like?

> There definitely is a down vote button. It's the negative sign next to the [username]|[time]

I said the opposite: "On HN there is a downvote button, but no block button"

> What if an author I follow posts something dumb? Do I then unfollow them?

If they keep posting posting content you don't like, then yes. Your timeline isn't going to change unless you change it.

> Why is it too much to ask to simply click dislike just like I would for something I like?

Because it won't do anything. A dislike would just be another number on a post next to the like and retweet counters, which are (supposedly) a major cause of the toxicity on Twitter.

Re: Twitter’s Plan to Get People to Stop Yelling at Each Other

#65

Post by lalos »

Why not add an ability for the author of the parent tweet to censor the tweets they please and other users can tap on 'show tweets hidden by author under this tweet'. End of story, people who are into the crazy discussions can see it, authors can control and censor as they please and Twitter washes it's hands by saying that the censoring is done on the personal level.

Re: Twitter’s Plan to Get People to Stop Yelling at Each Other

#66

Post by Chris_Chambers »

floatingatoll wrote: post #40

My takeaway is “Twitter’s plan is to stop showing integer counts to users, no matter what they say they want”. Good.

Why are twitter and instagram both suddenly talking about doing this? Were they instructed to either do this or face new regulations?

Re: Twitter’s Plan to Get People to Stop Yelling at Each Other

#67

Post by nineteen999 »

carriers wrote: post #59
skymt wrote: post #33

> Over several days this spring, BuzzFeed News met with Twitter’s leadership and watched as twttr’s team worked on its first big push: helping people better understand what’s being said in often chaotic conversations. The team thinks that if people took more time to read entire conversations, that would help improve their comprehension of them. I had assumed that Twitter was aware of the implications of its design fo…

Yeah, I don't get this at all. I think it's even deeper than designing for controversy. I'm "older" (40s), though I work on products used by younger people, so I don't think this is just me being old, but I can't follow a conversation on twitter at all. When there's a link from HackerNews to Twitter, I click on it and sometimes see the thing mentioned in the HN title, and sometimes don't. Then there's a bunch of stuf…

I'm a similar age as you. I did create a Twitter account once, but never used it more than once or twice.

Unfortunately the Twitter username (handle?) I chose happened to be the same as the name of a somewhat well-known RnB/Hip Hop video producer (who I had no knowledge of before I created the account).

I signed in a year or two later and found that I had a couple of hundred follow requests from various aspiring and up-and-coming rap artists. At that point I realised in all honesty that I probably had no real use for Twitter.

Re: Twitter’s Plan to Get People to Stop Yelling at Each Other

#69

Post by smacktoward »

scott_s wrote: post #60
gipp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not super optimistic about the changes, but getting rid of like/rt counts is not even close to a "tiny iterative ux change". Those counts are absolutely central to the way users interact with and understand conversation on the site. Getting rid of them completely is a massive sea change in the conversational dynamics.

It was a big change for HN.

And for Slashdot when it did so as well.

Seriously, we have nearly 20 years of evidence at this point showing that, if you associate something with users’ online identities that looks like a score, they will treat it as such and start looking for ways to outscore everyone else.

Re: Twitter’s Plan to Get People to Stop Yelling at Each Other

#70

Post by izzydata »

skybrian wrote: post #15

Simpler: stop showing tweets just because other people liked them. That's not a reshare, so it shouldn't be treated that way. More generally, discourage large conversations and encourage fragmentation.

I started using Tweetdeck specifically because of how annoying this was.
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